Insta-Catch-Up

I kinda neglected Insta Friday for a month so now I'm gonna smoosh the month of July and a few weeks of August into one happy little {BIG} post!

You ready?

Here we go, Banmans from Kelowna to California and back again....

Dressing room at Ross.

Me, a cute dress and my 6 kids.

Epic.

Made our mark on a Trader Joes.

Love what Mikayla wrote.

Cubling asleep on Grandma's couch.

Little lady in a hotel somewhere along the I-5.

Glorious Shasta hidden by the clouds.

Forever 21 Dressing room in Fresno.

Biggest XXI store on the West Coast.

Overwhelming.

Not my thing.

My bed in the hotel.

New earrings.

Exploring a new relationship with the color coral.

Never thought we could be friends but it turns out I was wrong.

Lego store in Portland.

Caleb remembered this store from last year and knew exactly where it was in the gigantic mall.

Impressive.

Out of my mouth as we passed this creek..."I'd love to stop there some day and walk on those rocks"

Mike takes the next exit and pulls off by the creek.

Spontaneous.

Random.

Reportedly one of the kids' favourite memories from our month long trip!

Me walking on the rocks with my coral {you can't tell from the pic} toes.

New love, my Anthropologie glass.

I need about 7 more to make my collection complete.

Now accepting donations in white or blue:)

Little shirt with baby's name on it.

Purchased in Cambria, CA.

Back home.

Feels good.

"current family favorite"

Swimming at Grandma Linda's pool.

Toddler buns are arguably one of the cutest things EVER!

Thunder and lightening scared my upstairs babies.

{Maddie and Cait and Caleb}

They all fell asleep in my bed.

Caleb likes his space but the girls were snuggled up like this.

New scooter bib=cute.

Organic blueberries and coconut milk for breakfast=healthy.

Cait=cute.

My garden which I left unattended for an entire month produced these gorgeous heirloom tomatoes and the basil.

Caprese salad just about does me in.

New fab app.

This is my new "lock screen" pic.

I love these photos that Jamie took last November!

Cambria and Kingsley.

His Mommy owns and runs Living Green Kid Co.

My favourite consignment store ever.

The babies were jumparoo buddies in the store the other day.

New faucet.

Basically like getting a new kitchen.

Thank you Mike.

Love it.

Cambria Love

Freezing blueberries in very large quantities.

My first attempt at Borscht.

Thumbs up all around.

{Thanks to my Mother in Law who told me what to do and then told me again 12 hours later when I called for a pep talk...}

I love conquering new things!!

Getting crafty at 12 midnight.

Craft night results..

A fabric flower for my friend Jessie's birthday:)

Me today.

That's it, I'm caught up!

Now to get the rest of my vacation posts up...

Fresno Zoo 2011

We live in a town without a zoo.

I think the closest zoo is about 4 hours away.

Whenever we go to a town with a zoo, I like to take the kids.

Because we studied the countries and cultures around the world this year, we had fun seeing the animals from all climates and continents.

Oh and the best part about our trip to the zoo?

The Obwalds came with us!!

Apparently this bear is usually not very active...or visible.

On this day, we got to watch her move all around and also go for a swim.

The kids were glued to her.

Little Caity loved the seals.  This is the pose she made while asking  

"tan you take a pit-cher o me an da seal?"

Special friends!

This visit all the kids really connected and had a great time together.

Special friends.

Caleb was excited to see a real tiger up close!

Look at this guy, it's like he was posing for me!

The mandatory Fresno Zoo photo opp.

Can you guess the color scheme?

Neon seems to be the hot color this summer for my kids.

Funny, I remember it being the hot color for me 20+ years ago!

Caity liked Nosey the Elephant.

My monkey sitting on a monkey.

8 crazy kiddos.

In the afternoon we said goodbye to our friends, ate lunch in the park and went back in the zoo.

 For 3 more hours.

Just me and the six.

Checking out the birds in the canopy.

Beautiful!

Big sister, Little sister.

The temperature was hot outside.

 The misters in the Rainforest felt so good!

Looking for poisonous Dart frogs.

We learned about these little guys this year in school.

It seemed like the kids were more engaged on this Zoo trip than in the past, like their better understanding of eco systems and habitats made the experience make more sense.

As the teacher I like to think that's the case:)

Can you see the animal in this photo?

For Daddy.

Flamingoes were a big hit.

We saw them during feeding time.

Thanks for coming to the Zoo with us:)

Fun At Grandma Bev's

We just got home from a month in California.  We stayed at my Mom's house in Fresno.  Here's a bunch of random moments that equalled a whole lot of fun at Grandmas...

Swinging on the deck eating healthy "Ice Cream".

This is a few seconds after Cambria rolled over for the first time!

Here she is back on her tummy.  I tried to get her to recreate the big "roll over".

Ya, not happening.

We have yet to see her do it again.

One morning I heard something in the front room.

I peeked in on Caity playing with the wooden blocks.

The blocks I played with as a kid.

Kinda sentimental...I love that stuff!

Anyways, I also loved seeing my little toddler at 6 in the morning playing all by herself.  

She was concentrating so hard.

Look at her fuzzy little bed head.

Cute to the max.

I could have watched her all day.

Too often I make a big stinky deal about the bad behaviour, roll my eyes and say "hurry up, hurry up" and all the little joys of small kids get taken for granted.

Oh and the little feet, who can resist those??

Grandma Bev's bed was "cozy" according to Cait.

Grandma Bev's floor looked like this a lot...

We got crafty...

...and enjoyed smooshing together around her cute little table.

Last but not least, here's a little video of Caitlyn and my Mom's dog Ginger.

I won't go into detail about my relationship with the dog.

I won't mention how frustrating it is when she escapes out the front door in 100+ heat and I have to stand behind the door while she sniffs the front yard and slowly meanders her way back inside.  I won't even say a peep about what she does when she finds interesting smelling items (ie: laundry, dirty diapers..).  I wouldn't do that.

What I will say is that he doggie is a nice little companion for my Mom and the kids had a lot of fun with her.

Cambria Hits The Town

 While in California, we made a special trip to the beach side town of Cambria. 

I hope to go back some day and get one of her without me in it:)

I tried, but it was a little awkward.

Little cutie!

For the record, most of the Cambrians that we asked say "cam-bri-ah", not "came-bri-ah".  We agreed we still like "Came-bri-ah" but we won't give you a dirty look if you say it wrong:)